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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Winning a Novella -- er, A Bride -- By Jade Lee

For the last few years, authors have been talking about the feed-in novella. You can't launch a book, they say, unless it has an attached novella. What does that mean? Well (I pretend to pull an example out of the air) for example, WINNING A BRIDE by Jade Lee has just been released! (Imagine confetti and a Sousa march right now). Next month see the advent of WHAT THE BRIDE WORE. Yeah!

But here's the problem: I don't write short. Not really. I routinely go 10-20,000 words over my limit. So a novella suddenly becomes a short novel. And my novel...well, let's just say I save weeks in my writing schedule just to cut words and tighten my manuscript.

And that doesn't even begin to address the point of the novella. After all, the whole idea is to give people a taste of my writing, a nice little story (purchased cheap) that leads them into my larger work. That's like crafting the perfect piece of tiny chocolate. I never think little chocolate. Who wants one tiny truffle when you can have a chocolate cheesecake? As my waistline will attest, I go for the cheesecake every time.

So everyone, here's your warning. My feed-in novella is long. Yup, longer than many contemporary romances. Oops. Now if you're interested in the story, well....here goes!

I've created the two Crowle brothers. Our hero in Winning a Bride is steward to the land his family once owned. And he's in love with the new owner's daughter. Did I mention that the lady's father hates him? Yup, it's awkward and horrible for him. Fortunately, he finds ways to entice the lovely girl to his way of thinking.

One thing would make his quest for Lady Josephine a great deal easier: a frank discussion with his older brother Grant. His courtship--in part--hinges on certain financial difficulties. But where is brother Grant with the answers to his questions? Missing! (Cue dramatic cymbal crash).

Meanwhile Lady Josephine becomes engaged to a handsome Scottish lord. If only she could stop sneaking away to talk to their beguiling and bedeviling steward. Plus there’s the lure of all those hot summer nights with the difficult steward!

So there you go. You're warned that it's a bigger than usual novella, and you know that there is steamy doings up in the woods at night!

Make a comment below, and one lucky person will receive a free e-book of one of my backlist titles!

A somewhat longer novela is just fine with me, the longer the better. I like short stories, but sometimes they don't have time to really get into the characters and the story as much as I'd like, so this sounds great to me.

Congratulations, Jade. And rest assured you're not the only author who "writes long." I regularly exceed the accepted word count too, and, once "The End" is written, I must always go in with my literary weed whackers to prune, trim, and excise excess verbiage. Shorter manuscript lengths these days are very much a mixed blessing!

Congratulations Barbara E! You've won your choice of one of my backlist books in e-format. Please email my assistant at kimscastillo at gmail dot com. Let her know what title you would like and if you'd like it for Kindle or Nook.